1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tracking the pharmaceuticals administered to patients.
2. Description of Related Art
There is great value in being able to quickly and efficiently track the patients to whom pharmaceuticals, such as blood derivatives, have been administered.
One example is product recall. Occasionally, a pharmaceutical will be recalled by its manufacturer or by the FDA. This occurs, for example, when a pharmaceutical is discovered to have been tainted by a pathogen of some type, by deficiencies in the manufacturing process, or to have suffered from a potency problem. Some years ago, for example, it was discovered that blood containing Hepatitis C was administered to approximately one million patients.
The ability to track pharmaceuticals to patients is also of great importance to research. Fast and efficient tracking can facilitate the evaluation of drug effectiveness. It can also facilitate an analysis of conditions for which a particular drug is being administered, information of vital importance to the manufacturers of those drugs and to others.
Our present system of medical care, however, does not provide a very effective method of tracking pharmaceuticals, including blood derivatives. When it is desired to track certain lot numbers of a pharmaceutical to the patients to whom they have been administered, there often are no records that can be consulted. Even when there are, the tracking is neither efficient, nor comprehensive.
One object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals, including blood derivatives.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that will enable specified lot numbers of a pharmaceutical to quickly and efficiently be tracked to the patients to whom those lot numbers were administered.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that is able to complement existing hospital computer systems quickly and with a minimum of effort.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that is compatible with a wide variety of existing hospital database systems.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that automatically makes use of existing databases of information, thus eliminating the need for the timely, costly and potentially error-prone duplication of information.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that provides redundant data storage at both a secure and a remote location.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that enables a central location to track pharmaceuticals that are administered at several hospitals.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that protects the confidentiality of patient information.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that automates the issuance of recall notifications.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that tracks the status of recall notifications.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that is easy to utilize and requires few steps to be performed to obtain the benefits of the invention, beyond those already being performed in systems that do not utilize the invention.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a lot tracking system for pharmaceuticals that will readily enable the tracking of patient treatment outcomes, as well as a broad variety of other information useful to patient safety and medical research.
These as well as still further features, objects and benefits of the present invention are facilitated by an apparatus and process that utilizes a plurality of remote systems, typically installed at hospitals, a host system, and a communication network connecting the two.
In one embodiment, one remote system includes a plurality of remote stations, each for associating the lot numbers of pharmaceuticals administered to patients with information relating to the patients that receive the pharmaceuticals. A remote communication system is also provided in each system for sending the associations to a host system.
The host system contains a host communication system for receiving the communications from each of the remote systems. The host system further includes a storage area for storing the association""s received from the remote communication systems.
When it is desired to track a particular lot number that is subject to an action, that number is entered into a station at the host system. That number is then looked up in a host look-up system to obtain the associations that are related to that lot number. Appropriate notices are then issued by a host notification system to recipients, based on the associations that are looked up by the host look-up system.
The communications between the remote systems and the host can be immediate, occasional or periodic. When occasional or periodic, the remote systems additionally include a storage area for storing the associations between lot numbers and the patient-related information.
In a preferred embodiment, much of the patient-related information is extracted from existing databases in each remote system. A map is advantageously used to associate the fields of information needed by the lot tracking system of the present invention with the fields of information that already exist in these databases.
In a still further embodiment of the present invention, the entry of a prescription for a pharmaceutical that is to be traced is automatically detected and automatically spawns subsequent date gathering and tracking functions.
In a still further embodiment of the present invention, the host notification system automatically issues notices of recalls and other tracking information to the recipients that have been indicated as being associated with the particular lot numbers of the pharmaceuticals that are the subject of the notifications. The host notification system further keeps track of the success of the notifications and, in one embodiment, produces reports of the notification efforts that have been made.
In a still further embodiment of the present invention, the lot tracking system includes validation features for validating the accuracy of lot numbers that are entered and for validating and updating the stored contact information.
In a still further embodiment of the present invention, a transaction tracking system is advantageously employed to make a record of each of the operational steps through which the system has gone.
Although having been thus-far described in the context of a tracking system for pharmaceuticals, a still further embodiment of the present invention is more broadly applicable to tracking all types of products, not merely pharmaceuticals.
The invention is directed to the apparatus that implements the invention, the storage media that stores the software programs used in some embodiments of the invention, and the process of the invention.
These as well as still further objects, features and benefits of the present invention will now become clear upon a review of the following Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments, along with the attached drawings.